The Fuglede conjecture for convex domains is true in all dimensions

• DOI: 10.4310/acta.2022.v228.n2.a3
• Publication Date: 2022-07-01T16:40:43Z
• Authors: Nir Lev; Máté Matolcsi
• Keywords: Mathematics - Functional Analysis; QA Mathematics / matematika; Mathematics - Metric Geometry; Mathematics - Classical Analysis and ODEs; Classical Analysis and ODEs (math.CA); FOS: Mathematics; Metric Geometry (math.MG); 0101 mathematics; 01 natural sciences; 42B10, 52B11, 52C07, 52C22; Functional Analysis (math.FA)

A set $Ω\subset \mathbb{R}^d$ is said to be spectral if the space $L^2(Ω)$ has an orthogonal basis of exponential functions. A conjecture due to Fuglede (1974) stated that $Ω$ is a spectral set if and only if it can tile the space by translations. While this conjecture was disproved for general sets, it has long been known that for a convex body $Ω\subset \mathbb{R}^d$ the "tiling implies spectral" part of the conjecture is in fact true. To the contrary, the "spectral implies tiling" direction of the conjecture for convex bodies was proved only in $\mathbb{R}^2$, and also in $\mathbb{R}^3$ under the a priori assumption that $Ω$ is a convex polytope. In higher dimensions, this direction of the conjecture remained completely open (even in the case when $Ω$ is a polytope) and could not be treated using the previously developed techniques. In this paper we fully settle Fuglede's conjecture for convex bodies affirmatively in all dimensions, i.e. we prove that if a convex body $Ω\subset \mathbb{R}^d$ is a spectral set then $Ω$ is a convex polytope which can tile the space by translations. To prove this we introduce a new technique, involving a construction from crystallographic diffraction theory, which allows us to establish a geometric "weak tiling" condition necessary for a set $Ω\subset \mathbb{R}^d$ to be spectral.